Federal Trial Begins in Fatal Duck Boat Disaster

April 30, 2012

Philadelphia, PA (April 30, 2012) - A non-jury
trial begins Monday, May 7, in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia
regarding the civil wrongful death case (C.A. No. 10-5750 and C.A.
No. 11-79) resulting from the July 7, 2010 collision between a
tourist duck boat and an empty sludge barge, that claimed the lives
of two young Hungarian student-visitors on a local church-sponsored
sightseeing ride.

Killed by drowning were Dora Schwendtner, 16,
and Szabolcs Prem, 20, whose parents will be in the courtroom for
opening arguments before U.S. District Court Judge Thomas N.
O'Neill. Before appearing in court, they will place memorial
wreaths in the Delaware River near the site of the accident in
which their only children, among the 35 passengers on the
retrofitted World War II-era landing craft, perished.

Other parties in the trial, expected to last
four weeks, include K-Sea Transportation Partners (KSP-NYSE)
owner-operator of the the M/V Caribbean Sea tugboat, which was
pushing The Resource, a 250-foot barge, upriver, Ride the Ducks
International, LLC, a Georgia-based company, and subsidiary of
Herschend Family Entertainment, that owned, maintained, and
operated the 33-foot amphibious tour boat (DUKW 34). Both parties
are claiming that under an archaic 1851 Federal maritime limitation
of liability law, their total liability should be capped at the
value of the vessels involved in the accident. K-Sea
estimates the value of the tug at $1.65 million, and Ride the Ducks
asserts $150,000 in total liability based on the value of the
salvaged duck boat.

The evidence to be presented at trial will
conclusively establish that this accident was not a freak
unpredictable occurrence, but occurred because of multiple
egregious failures of K-Sea and Ride the Ducks to properly train
their employees and to have adequate policies and procedures in
place. Tugboat First Mate, Matt Devlin's cell phone use that
day, which distracted him from adequately looking out for the
disabled duck boat, was not an aberrational event. In fact,
Devlin has testified on videotape that will be presented at trial
that he used his cell phone while on every watch during his 10
years employed by K-Sea. The evidence will establish that
every person on the tugboat routinely and consistently violated
K-Sea's cell phone policies and that management knew of such
violations and did nothing to deter them.

The evidence will also establish that Ride the
Ducks employed an incompetent mechanic who in his first time
performing a post-trip inspection alone, the night before the
accident, left the radiator cap off of the boat's engine. It
was that failure that led the engine to overheat and Captain Gary
Fox to incorrectly believe there was a fire on board and to make
the fateful decision to shut down the vessel in an active shipping
channel. Ride the Ducks' other systemic failures include
their failure to instruct their passengers to don their life
preservers until it was too late, the design of the boat with
canopies that trapped the two young students and drowned them, the
failure to have a Coast Guard required anchor ball which would have
alerted First Mate Devlin that the boat was broken down at an
anchor when he first saw it from a mile away, and their failure to
equip the boat with an emergency air horn and radio. Captain Fox
had complained to ride the Ducks about five years before the
accident about these lapses and he was totally ignord.

Trial counsel for the claimants is the law
firm of Saltz Mongeluzzi Barrett & Bendesky and the law firm of
Ronai and Ronai. SMBB's Robert J. Mongeluzzi, Andrew R. Duffy, and
Jeffrey P. Goodman will be appearing on behalf of SMBB; Holly
Ostrov Ronai and Peter Ronai are the co-counsel on behalf of Ronai
and Ronai. The trial is expected to last for approximately four
weeks during which more than two-dozen witnesses for the claimants
may be called. A number of filed documents regarding the case
can be found at www.duckboatdisaster.com.